


Dead Man's Eyes

by rocknrollravenclaw



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, History, I'm sure fics like this have been written, Post Season 2, What-If, background Linctavia and Minty, but this is my take on it, since Bellamy is a history nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4936762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocknrollravenclaw/pseuds/rocknrollravenclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter is coming, and Clarke still isn't back. Now the unthinkable has happened: Bellamy is hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Man's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a medical expert. So Bellamy's wound may not be accurately depicted.  
> The Clarke/Sekhmet comparison was inspired by this tumblr post: http://heda-kru.tumblr.com/post/126105636565/the-100-characters-as-egyptian-gods  
> Fic inspired by the song Dead Man's Eyes by Apocalyptica. Lyrics from the song are found at the beginning of each section of the story.

_Autumn leaves turn brandy wine  
Fall and dance in the wind outside_

“Clear the way! I need my surgery equipment **now**. I’ve got a patient here with a gunshot wound to the chest, with possible damage to his heart and left lung. Find me some anesthetic.”

“Abby, will he be all right?”

“I don’t know, Kane. I’ll do my best.”

Bellamy barely heard their words. The pain coming from the center of his chest seemed to block out all other senses. It rhythmically flowed through him, coming in waves like ripples from a disturbance in a pond. All his eyes saw were bland shades of white. Every breath hurt, and the act of drawing air into his lungs was difficult.

The view changed. Now he was seeing gray metal, intermittent lights searing his eyes. He groaned, unable to stop himself.

“How the hell did he get shot? The Grounders don’t have any guns.”

“They might. In the last attack one gun was reported missing.”

“We need to reestablish our truce with the Grounders. We can’t keep losing people, not with winter coming on.”

“Lexa betrayed us. You know as well as I do that the truce is dead.”

He had stopped moving. A light was directly above him, shining into his eyes. He squeezed them shut, yet the light still dazzled his vision. (Painfully bright, just like Clarke.) He could hear a clattering of tools on a hard surface as Abby prepared herself for surgery.

“First thing I need to do is take out the bullet, to relieve pressure from his lungs.” Half of the light was blocked, presumably by Abby. “We’re out of anesthetic, so I’m afraid this might hurt.”

“Hang on, Bellamy.” Kane whispered in his ear. Bellamy wanted to respond, saying that he couldn’t do anything else, he had his people to protect, but couldn’t find the breath to speak.

Tweezers touched the edges of his wound, and suddenly the ripples of pain jumped up in frequency. He gasped and opened his eyes, surprised by how much it hurt. But that didn’t matter — _this_ pain he could outlast. He felt the agony begin to pull him down. The light above him seemed be shrinking, fading from sight.

The edge of unconsciousness rose to meet him; Bellamy jumped in feet-first. The last thing he glimpsed before his eyes closed was a flash of hair, golden as the sun.

 

_A lifetime written in his weathered face  
Every triumph, every fall from grace_

As soon as the dropship touched the ground, Bellamy knew there would be chaos. It was bound to happen, with one hundred juvenile delinquents crowded together — and one murderer. Bellamy knew he had to act before there was a struggle for power. It was the only way to ensure his sister’s safety.

And right from the beginning, there had been opposition — but not from the person he expected. The guy with the greasy hair and the big nose had been Bellamy’s selection for group challenger, but he seemed content to follow Bellamy’s lead. No, it came from a girl with hair as golden as the sun.

Clarke Griffin was the daughter of one of the Council members, and thus part of the upper class. There was no way Bellamy could reason with a girl like that. How could a princess like her understand the struggles of the common people? People like her imposed rules that seemed fair on the surface, but only benefitted the lawmakers. (What’s wrong with a little chaos?)

But there was something about her that was captivating. Even as they struggled for control, arguing over decisions and rules and leadership, Bellamy found himself fascinated by her. A frustrated type of fascination, tinged with awe. She was like the Earth: beautiful, mysterious, necessary. And perilous.

Then something magical happened. Some slight shift, some change in attitude, that transformed his whole perspective. And it started because Clarke screwed up. She just had to go and rouse the whole camp, telling them Murphy was a murderer and inciting a mob, in the name of “the right to know.” It was after that, when Clarke banished Murphy, that Bellamy realized: Clarke was right. They did need rules. Rules were blankets that protected children from the dark. And that’s what they were — children. Children who controlled the fate of the Ark.

It was a bittersweet thing, to admit that he was wrong. Bitter because it meant he was failing in his duty to keep everyone in line. Sweet because he suddenly recognized Clarke for who she really was. She was like a figure out of one of Bellamy’s favorite books — Theodora, the famous Byzantine empress. Theodora practically ruled a large empire, her supportive husband at her side. She extended aid to the weaker members of her people, while acting swiftly against those who deserved it. Bellamy could only imagine what Clarke could do if she was the leader of an entire empire, holding hundreds of thousands of people.

Clarke changed him, for better or for worse. He depended on her to calm the seething anger inside him, the swirling mess of emotions, the chaos that threatened to poison everyone. Bellamy had learned to rely on himself for everything; now she was a part of him, every bit as vital as a beating heart. She changed him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop her.

(He didn’t want to stop her.)

Then came the attack of the Grounders. Their people — they had become more than just random delinquents; they were like a family, with Bellamy and Clarke as the parents — were bleeding and dying, trampled into the mud. And when they thought they were safe, Mount Weather came and took them. Bellamy felt as though his heart had suddenly vanished. His princess, his _people_ , were gone without a trace.

He had feared the worst. A rear guard of Grounders had come in and finished them off. The acid fog melted them, leaving their remains in puddles on the already soaked forest floor. Wild beasts had dragged them off one by one.

And yet, the real answer was much more terrifying.

After escaping from Mount Weather, Clarke was different. More focused and determined, her single goal being the rescue of her children. It was as if the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet had been reincarnated. On one hand she bestowed life; on the other hand she distributed death. (I am become **death** , destroyer of worlds.) There was a certain beauty in that delicate balance, a beauty Bellamy knew he would surely spoil if he tried. Clarke became a diplomat, negotiating peace with the Grounders in order to face their common enemy. And through it all Bellamy tried to be her support, her rock. The first person she would run to when coming back to Camp Jaha.

He never intended to fall in love. That was just a ~~heartbreaking~~ happy effect. The joy that filled Bellamy whenever he saw her — it was the greatest feeling on Earth. It was euphoric; it was addictive. His feelings were intensified and magnified, to the point where his heart felt it could burst some days. He loved his princess, loved the feeling of holding her in his arms, of keeping her safe.

Which was why he had to infiltrate Mount Weather. Clarke needed _him_ to do it, with words that hurt like an electric shock. (I was being weak.) And yet it was a sort of validation, that perhaps she loved him back; perhaps she felt the same as he did, only she pushed away her feelings instead of embracing them. It didn’t matter either way. She needed him. Their people needed him.

Those last two thoughts filled his mind every moment he was in Mount Weather. It made everything he did somehow justifiable. It allowed Bellamy to watch that kid walk to school, knowing that he had killed the boy’s father, without breaking down or losing his mind. Those two thoughts meant that every resident of Mount Weather was guilty in some capacity, and thus deserved it. But those two thoughts eventually boiled down to one.

(She **needed** him.)

When the time came to make that final decision, the decision that would surely damn them forever, the decision that forbid any possibility of a happy ending, Bellamy was right by her side. He placed his hands on top of Clarke’s, feeling the small fingers trembling beneath his sweaty palms. _I’m here. I won’t ever leave you_. At that moment, he felt a strange sense of calm. They had made their choice. It was time to face the consequences. But at least they would do it, side by side. United.

They pulled the lever. And Bellamy’s world collapsed.

 

_A shadow wanders through the fog  
Searching for the light it lost_

Strangely, it wasn’t the first week that was the hardest. It was the second.

The week after Clarke left, Bellamy was angry at her. He couldn’t even hear her name without feeling a surge of anger in his breast — and of course, everybody was talking about her. What she’d done in Mount Weather, the fallout of her alliance with Lexa, her sudden disappearance. It had gotten to the point where Bellamy spent most of his days by himself, on solitary guard duty outside the fence surrounding Camp Jaha.

(Why did she have to go?)

Clarke was being selfish. Sure, her plan got their people out of Mount Weather — but did she expect everything to be fine after that? Her people were scarred, both physically and mentally. They had watched their friends be tortured and killed in front of them. Jasper was heartbroken, Octavia was still in shock, Raven was a broken mess . . . the list went on and on and on. So many shattered souls came out of Mount Weather. And with Clarke gone, only Bellamy was left to sew the pieces back together.

It was easy, being angry at her. Bellamy had a hole inside of him, a hole that he kept stuffing full of rage. That rage fueled him, helped him to keep going day after day. At night he sat against the hull of the downed ship and looked out towards the woods, cursing her name. She was out there somewhere, living free and unburdened, while he had to clean up the mess. When she thought the battle was over, Clarke had turned and run. And Bellamy hated her for that.

Then the second week came. Clarke still hadn’t returned. Bellamy didn’t notice that his fury had disappeared until he was on his first trip into the woods to search for her. Octavia, Lincoln, Monty, and Miller came with him. After an hour searching through the trees and brush for her, Bellamy had called for the group to turn around. That’s when he noticed Monty and Miller holding hands as they walked. On his other side, Octavia and Lincoln had their swords out, watching each other’s blind spots.

The rage dissipated like dewdrops in the sun. Monty and Miller found comfort in each other. Octavia and Lincoln were linked like Cleopatra and Antony from long ago. His anger gone, Bellamy acutely felt the hole inside him, one that could only be filled by Clarke. ( **Please** come inside.)

She hadn’t just abandoned her people; she’d abandoned him. And that pain was killing him.

Clarke wasn’t the only one with guilt — Bellamy had pushed that lever too. The blood of all those children was on both their hands. The same guilt that coursed through her veins plagued Bellamy’s dreams. It was the same scene, played on loop: a young boy with the name Lovejoy written on his backpack, slowly choking as the radiation filled his classroom. Bellamy would wake up, shaking and crying, and wishing there was someone beside him, someone just as screwed up as him, who would make the bad dreams disappear. But she was gone. He was alone.

Every day Bellamy went out into the woods to search for her. He had a purpose again, a goal. His search parties became smaller and smaller until it was just him. But that was alright with him. Because once he found Clarke, he would be whole again.

When the Grounders officially declared war against the Sky People, Bellamy shortened his searches, keeping closer to the safety of the fences. His hopes of finding Clarke sank lower and lower with each passing day, until he woke up and realized he would never find her. She would just have to come back when she was ready.

Weeks slipped by. Abby and Kane resumed charge of the camp, while Bellamy was reduced to a figurehead, a shadow of his former status. He still made it his mission to care for his people, his delinquents. He forced himself to focus on healing them. Every little victory was a cause for celebration — Jasper finally cracking a smile, Octavia releasing her feelings, Raven venturing out of her lab for the first time since coming home.

Months passed. Attacks from the Grounds became more frequent and deadly. The people of Camp Jaha were constantly on their toes trying to repel the attacks and devise counterstrikes. In the midst of this, the leaves turned glorious shades of orange and yellow before gently falling to the ground. Cold winds came out of the north, driving people inside. At night the guards could see their breath, magical white clouds that vanished into the dark nights. It was the prelude to something they’d heard about in stories, but had never experienced: winter.

And still Bellamy couldn’t forget her. He volunteered for guard duty every night so he could be the first to see her ~~when~~ if she came back. The rage, the loneliness, it was all gone, replaced by newfound determination. Now that it was getting cold, she would have to come back. Clarke was smart and resourceful, but she didn’t understand winter. None of them did. But at least they could figure it out together. On the clear nights, Bellamy would look up at the stars, twinkling some secret message at him, and tell her the stories of the constellations. With the constellations for company he was no longer alone.

The day before Bellamy was shot was the first snow fall. The flakes were small and cold, barely getting a chance to alight on the ground before they melted. The Sky People came outside and looked at the sky in wonder, Bellamy among them. The snowflakes tickled his face as they landed softly on his cheeks. He inspected a perfect snowflake that had fallen on his jacket sleeve. Its geometry was astonishing, a complex hexagonal shape. But before he could fasten the image in his mind it melted. (Cold and insubstantial, just like Clarke.)

Winter had arrived. And Clarke was still gone.

 

_I’m not afraid_  
_Because I’m not alone_  
_She’s waiting there_  
_To carry me home_  


A sliver of light found its way under Bellamy’s eyelids. It slowly expanded, forcing his eyes open, until a blurry vision of the ceiling appeared before him. Something brown entered his sight, and as his vision cleared, he could see it was hair. Abby smiled gently at him. “How are you doing? Your friends will be glad to know you’re awake.”

Bellamy felt faint and weak. And there was something about her smile that seemed forced, calculated. The words tumbled out of his mouth like heavy rocks, their presence filling the room. “I’m dying, aren’t I,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

Abby’s smile faded and her face turned grave. For the most part, she and her daughter looked nothing alike: different face shapes, different eye and hair color, different noses. But they had the same sorrowful look, the one that meant they had done all they could for their patients.

“The bullet caused your left lung to collapse. I was able to fix that.” She was evading the question, her eyes not meeting Bellamy’s. “The issue is with your heart. The bullet tore through the pericardium, the membrane that surrounds the heart. Several arteries run through there. Every attempt to fix it just made you bleed out faster. There’s nothing more I can do.”

_No_. He couldn’t be dying. Not now. They needed him to stand guard duty, to chop firewood, to organize his people. Dying would be a different kind of abandonment, one that could never be reversed.

Bellamy swallowed thickly as he felt tears begin to spring up around his eyes. “Could . . . could I have a moment alone please?” he asked desperately.

Abby nodded, understanding, as she left the room. Without her presence the room was deathly silent. Dimly Bellamy wondered if it was snowing outside again. He wished he could see the snow one last time before he died.

A rustling sound. Bellamy tried lifting his head to get a better view. “Hello?” Perhaps Abby had come back in to check on him. The sound of boots on a metal floor advanced toward him, agonizingly slow. He still couldn’t see anyone.

Then a figure came into view. And Bellamy stopped breathing for a moment.

She looked different than when they had parted. Her face was thinner and her cheekbones more prominent, likely from hunger. Her hair was captured in a thick yet dirty braid at the back of her head, the long tail draped over her shoulder. Her clothes were stained with mud and wet with snow. Something resembling earmuffs hung around her neck: curled-up squirrel tails connected by a flexible branch.

She looked beautiful.

The tears finally escaped his eyes as Clarke walked up to the side of his bed, her face uplifted. It reminded him of when she’d made it back to Camp Jaha after escaping from Mount Weather. Her face had looked the same then: weary, beaten, tired, yet full of relief and love. Bellamy drank in her smile and gave her his crooked smile in response.

“Hey.” Clarke’s greeting grew wings and shakily flew the distance between the two lovers leaders, gently falling and resting in Bellamy’s lap. It was clear that Clarke was afraid of how Bellamy would respond.

And she was right to be afraid. All his previous anger, which he thought he had finally made peace with, came flooding back. Now that she was here, maybe she could finally give him answers to the questions that had tortured him since she left. _Why did you leave? How could you abandon our people like that? Did you know that you were breaking my heart_?

He said none of that. She was back — that was all that mattered.

“Long time no see, princess.”

Clarke’s face crumpled and she leaned forward to throw her arms around Bellamy. He grunted as his heart gave a painful throb, but didn’t push her away. Almost of their own accord, his arms wrapped themselves around her, holding her close.

“I’m back,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m back now, and I’m not leaving.”

Bellamy squeezed his eyes shut, feeling her hair against his cheek, matching his weak breathing to hers. He never wanted this to end.

But at last Clarke subtly pulled away, and Bellamy reluctantly released her. In silence they studied each other for a moment, taking in the changes. Bellamy wondered what the others would think when they saw her. ~~His~~ their people would be able to finish healing now that Clarke had returned.

A thought occurred to him. “Why now?” he said hoarsely. Something funny was happening with his vision; Clarke seemed to shift in and out of his focus.

She gave him that dazzling smile that captivated him. “I’m here for you. Don’t you understand? I’m here to take you home.”

Bellamy frowned. What did she mean, take him home? Camp Jaha was his home now. Unless she meant somewhere else. “The dropship?”

Clarke laughed. “You call the dropship home?”

Fair point. Bellamy thought some more. The only other place he would call his home was the Ark. But the Ark didn’t exist any more. “I don’t understand.” The gray metal above him was fuzzy and indistinct.

“You’re thinking about this all wrong.” Clarke gripped his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. “A home isn’t just a place. It’s where a person feels most comfortable, feels most loved.” Bellamy felt his world spinning as stars against a black background appeared in his vision, blotting out everything else. (The stars were beautiful and unattainable.) He couldn’t see Clarke any more.

But he could still feel her comforting presence. He sensed her leaning over him, her voice becoming softer and more intimate. “A home can be a person.” Those last words floated like a feather through the air — and Bellamy understood. The stars disappeared, sinking into the blackness.

This was it. He struggle to stay conscious, because he knew Clarke had something more to say, just one more thing that he had to hear. One thing that his soul craved to hear, the thing that would give his feelings that validation they wanted.

“Come home with me, Bellamy.”

A pair of lips caressed his forehead as Bellamy fell into the blackness for the last time.

(The stars were beautiful yet forever beyond his grasp, just like Clarke.)

 

_Another winter’s come and gone_  
_It won’t be long_  
_It won’t be long_  


Snow began to drift lazily to the ground. This time the ground was frozen enough that the snow refused to melt, dotting the brown earth. The clouds hung low and heavy in the sky, shedding their burden onto the ground. The snow began to pick up the pace; before long, the ground was completely white. The weak underbrush began to sag under the weight of the snow, bowing down before it. A bird chirped, its voice muffled by the falling snow.

The snow was enchanting; it was also inhospitable. A sign to all lifeforms that the season of death was upon them.

Clarke stood in an open field, her eyes closed, feeling the snow on her upturned face. Ever since the first snowfall the day before, she had felt an urge to return to Camp Jaha, to return to her people. The snow was a signal that her penance had been paid.

Opening her eyes, she resumed walking. Her boots made footprints in the snow, leaving a trail behind her. Clarke estimated that she was about ten miles from Camp Jaha; if she walked fast enough, she could possibly make it there before dark.

The worst part about her walk was the thoughts. The insidious, malicious thoughts that crept into her ears, whispering about how they surely must hate and despise her. _You killed them all. Their blood is on your hands_. Her hands were dripping with blood, so much blood that one touch would stain a person for life. (I bear it so they don’t have to.) It was these thoughts that made her want to turn back and stay in the woods, where she would hurt nobody.

But it was time. She needed to be with her people. Almost every day since she left she had missed them: Raven, Octavia, Jasper, Monty, Miller, Kane, her mom . . . and Bellamy. The hurt look on Bellamy’s face as she turned her back to him haunted Clarke’s dreams. She would do anything to make it right between them again. She could take his anger, his silence, his judgment, because she knew she deserved it. But eventually, she knew, things would be mended between them. 

Clarke was wrong.

How was she to know that at that precise moment, Bellamy had died from a broken heart?

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive critiques are always welcome! All I ask is that you be respectful about it. I'm still experimenting with my writing style, so tell me what you think of it.


End file.
